The Government’s attempt to say it has met all targets in its Homelessness Action Plan is belied by the facts, National’s Housing spokesperson Chris Bishop says.

“This Government is trying to claim progress on homelessness by making sure the reports it publishes focuses on the amount of money spent and the number of programmes started – not the actual outcomes.

“Unfortunately for this Government, starting programmes and throwing money at them is not the same as improving outcomes for New Zealanders.

“It is ridiculous that the Government claims to have ‘met its targets’ on homelessness, when it has actually increased in the last five years, and their policies have made it worse.

“The Government used to report on measures of homelessness. For example, the 18 month review of the Homelessness Action Plan until August 2021 showed that eight of the 11 measures of homelessness had gotten worse since 2019.

“But the last two progress reports, including the most recent one reported today, have excluded these measures – presumably because they would continue to show the worsening state of homelessness in this country.

“This Government has overseen a housing disaster and their Homelessness Action Plan has been a failure.

“On every metric, housing has gotten worse. Rents are up $140 per week, thousands of households live in emergency housing motels, including nearly 4000 children, and the state house waitlist has increased by over 20,000 applicants since Labour came to office.

“The Government now spends over $1 million per week on emergency housing and there has been a quadrupling in the number of families living in cars and tents since 2017.

“If failure is the target, then the Government gets a gold star.

“Kiwis deserve better than a Government that is out of touch, out of ideas, and has simply given up on solving New Zealand’s housing crisis. They certainly deserve better than reports that do nothing other than provide spin for a Government that fails to deliver.”

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